Whats the best way to get a bug fixed?

[saschadd]

Hi,
i am using zimbra open source for some time now and til now i have had no big issues with it or could find a way to resolve the issue myself.
As of version 8.8.7 there seem to be some bugs which seem to have some more people than me and couldnt be resolved by ourselfes so far.
As far as i noticed the problems are not resolved yet after posting to this forum.
Here are some examples:

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=64048
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=63930&start=10
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=63835&start=10

So it seems not enought to post to this forum.
Should we file a bug for every issue and how to do it the best way to follow the devs workflow and geht?
Maybe a little info how to do it right would help both sides to solve issues fast.

[phoenix]

So it seems not enought to post to this forum.

It was always recommended to file a bug report, the only reason to post in these forums was to see if there was a workaround for a specific problem.

Should we file a bug for every issue and how to do it the best way to follow the devs workflow and geht?
Maybe a little info how to do it right would help both sides to solve issues fast.

There is no specific method to 'do it right' and as Zimbra has not fixed many bugs (or even acknowledged their existence) for years, I wouldn't hold out much hope for getting any specific bug fixed. If you also look through the forums you'll see that the current bug reporting system is being moved to a closed source version for NE users and the Community is supposed to be getting something else but I don't know what that will be nor would I expect it any time soon.

[L. Mark Stone]

Hi,
i am using zimbra open source for some time now and til now i have had no big issues with it or could find a way to resolve the issue myself.
As of version 8.8.7 there seem to be some bugs which seem to have some more people than me and couldnt be resolved by ourselfes so far.
As far as i noticed the problems are not resolved yet after posting to this forum.
Here are some examples:

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=64048
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=63930&start=10
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=63835&start=10

So it seems not enought to post to this forum.
Should we file a bug for every issue and how to do it the best way to follow the devs workflow and geht?
Maybe a little info how to do it right would help both sides to solve issues fast.

These forums are a Community endeavor, just like the Citrix forums; Citrix employees lurk and often participate, but it's not an official Support Channel -- for Citrix nor for Zimbra.

The best way to get something fixed in Zimbra in my experience is to open a Support Case in the customer Support Portal. This has always been true even before Zimbra started using Jira for scheduling development; bugs in Bugzilla which had Support Cases attached to them were typically given priority. I understand that's not possible for OSE users, but other than the package dependency issue you pointed out I don't see any issues in your post that impact OSE users only, and not NE users. And Zimbra is aware of that repo issue.

As re the other two issues you pointed out, again, The Talk/Chat thing -- which impacted me and some of my clients -- has a simple "fix" in that you install Talk to get rid of Chat, run a few commands and you are done, even without a Talk license to obtain the extra functionality.

The 8.8.6 IMAP issue you pointed out, with all due respect, I discount some. First, 8.8.6 has had a lot bugs fixed by 8.8.8; really you should be on 8.8.8 and see if the problem remains. Second, in the dozen years I've been hosting Zimbra, IMAP has always been a thorn in my side, mostly because IMAP's RFC for years has been open to interpretation. Remember all the sturm and drum around Mac Mail, nested IMAP folder trees and huge numbers of IMAP connections? The RFC is more than 100 pages, but the gap between the specifications themselves and implementation best practices is still too wide IMHO. FWIW I see lots of IMAP annoyances with Office365 as well. Lastly, weird behavior like that in my experience often (not always) disappears after a mailbox reindex.

Please do keep posting your issues here in the forums, even if you can't as an OSE user open an actual Support Case. I've opened Support Cases before where, as a Moderator here, I've seen a number of users impacted with an issue even though my hosting environment nor my customers were impacted.

All the best,
Mark

[saschadd]

Thanks for your thoughts and infos.

There is no specific method to 'do it right' and as Zimbra has not fixed many bugs (or even acknowledged their existence) for years, I wouldn't hold out much hope for getting any specific bug fixed. If you also look through the forums you'll see that the current bug reporting system is being moved to a closed source version for NE users and the Community is supposed to be getting something else but I don't know what that will be nor would I expect it any time soon.

Sounds not to good.

The best way to get something fixed in Zimbra in my experience is to open a Support Case in the customer Support Portal. This has always been true even before Zimbra started using Jira for scheduling development; bugs in Bugzilla which had Support Cases attached to them were typically given priority. I understand that's not possible for OSE users, but other than the package dependency issue you pointed out I don't see any issues in your post that impact OSE users only, and not NE users. And Zimbra is aware of that repo issue.

Well i filed a bug some time ago which seems not to be even noticed since then thats why i was thinking that i did something wrong.
https://bugzilla.zimbra.com/show_bug.cgi?id=108307

As re the other two issues you pointed out, again, The Talk/Chat thing -- which impacted me and some of my clients -- has a simple "fix" in that you install Talk to get rid of Chat, run a few commands and you are done, even without a Talk license to obtain the extra functionality.

I tried that but when i installed the talk version then yum was telling me that it wants to update to chat and vise versa.
Well at the moment i ignore those with the --skip broken command but it is a bit dirty workaround.

The 8.8.6 IMAP issue you pointed out, with all due respect, I discount some. First, 8.8.6 has had a lot bugs fixed by 8.8.8; really you should be on 8.8.8 and see if the problem remains. Second, in the dozen years I've been hosting Zimbra, IMAP has always been a thorn in my side, mostly because IMAP's RFC for years has been open to interpretation. Remember all the sturm and drum around Mac Mail, nested IMAP folder trees and huge numbers of IMAP connections? The RFC is more than 100 pages, but the gap between the specifications themselves and implementation best practices is still too wide IMHO. FWIW I see lots of IMAP annoyances with Office365 as well. Lastly, weird behavior like that in my experience often (not always) disappears after a mailbox reindex.

I updated to 8.8.8 and was hoping that it fixes the issue but unfortunately it did'nt.
Even if there are different implementations of the IMAP RFC there should be a way to work fluently with zimbra and thunderbird i think. The zimbra desktop client is not really an alternative as it downloads everything to the computer which i want to avoid.

I were thinking about reindexing the mailbox would solve the issue but i couldnt find a proper way to do it.
If i understand it right we have an index in the mariadb and the email files as the real message store on disk.
So for the first failure where a moved message cant be seen in the folder where it has been moved to the message file on disk stays where it is but the information in the mariadb is not correctly updated. The info gehts correctly written to the database when someone goes to webmail and marks the message read and then again unread.
And for the secone failure where the "orphaned message" is no longer there the file on disk is gone but there still exists an entry in the database for that message file on disk which causes to show an unread message everytime you enter that folder.
While writing that i was wondering what differences are there in the connection to the imap server between the webmail client and thunderbird. As far as i noticed the webmail client connects to the imap server as well so if we could get thunderbird to connect in the same way the problems should be gone. But it could be impossible because of local connection to the imap server (webmail) and external connection (tb). Well just some thoughts so far. ; )

Please do keep posting your issues here in the forums, even if you can't as an OSE user open an actual Support Case. I've opened Support Cases before where, as a Moderator here, I've seen a number of users impacted with an issue even though my hosting environment nor my customers were impacted.

I will do and thanks for helping out others!

So far, have a nice one. Sascha

[L. Mark Stone]

Hi Sascha,

Thanks for your reply. It's not clear to me from your post nor profile (sorry if I missed it) if you are running the Open Source version or Network Edition.

As I mentioned, if Network Edition you are entitled to open a Support Case. What I didn't mention is that if you are running the Open Source Edition, Zimbra sells a Support package for OSE users that entitles you to open a Support Case. At least here in North America, OSE Support is a lot less money than buying Network Edition (which comes bundled with Support).

Not trying to sell you anything you don't want/need; just trying to get you options for you to get personal attention direct from Zimbra.

Hope that helps,
Mark